THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY OF PASTORS
MARK 6:7-13

Victorian Pastors’ Inservice
Sacred Heart Monastery,
Croydon, Victoria
26 June, 1997

1.	Introduction

a.	The pastor as a secret agent of the Triune God

b.	The secret of teaching with authority as an agent of the risen Lord

2.	The Content of the Passage

a.	It comes at the end of a section on the ministry of teaching and healing by Jesus in 3:13 – 6:6 and immediately after his rejection as teacher and healer in Nazareth in 6:1-6.

b.	It begins a new section on the mission of Jesus with his twelve disciples in 6:7-8:26.

c.	This passage is closely connected with the summary statement in 6:6b on the teaching ministry of Jesus (see similar summaries in 1:21-22; 2:13; 4:1-2; 6:30-34; 10:1; 12:35-40).

1)	It shows how the twelve and their successors are involved in the teaching work of Jesus.

2)	It follows the same pattern and is the climax of two other similar segments.

a)	The summary of preaching by Jesus in 1:14-15 leads to his call of four disciples as fishers for people in 1:16-20.

b)	The summary of healing by Jesus in 3:7-12 leads to his call of the twelve apostles in 3:13-19 (which closely resembles this passage in its content).

c)	The summary of teaching by Jesus here in 6:6b leads to his commission of the twelve as his authoritative agents in 6:7-12.

3.	The Structure of 6:7-13: the Mission of the Apostles

a.	Jesus commissions the twelve as his apostles: 7

1)	Call by Jesus (cf. 3:13)

2)	Sending out in pairs

3)	Their authorisation and empowerment

b.	Jesus sets down the terms for this mission: 8-11

1)	Their provision for travel (8-9)

2)	Their acceptance of initial hospitality (10)

3)	Their reaction to those who spurn them (11)

c.	The apostles carry out their commissioned task: 12-13 (cf. 6:30)

1)	Word: preaching of repentance

2)	Deed: healing by casting out demons and anointing the sick

4.	Exposition and Application

a.	This passage shows how the apostles operate in and under the authority of Jesus.

1)	We need to distinguish this authority from the unrestricted exercise of power (see 10:35-45). The term exousia has to do with personal competence
•	the official warrant or commission to act
•	the legal right to act
•	the personal ability and power to act effectively
•	the capacity of a people to inspire confidence in themselves and to get others to do as they say because of their character and behaviour

2)	Christ chose them and delegates his own authority as the Son of God to them according to his terms of reference for them as teachers together with him.

3)	Their power comes from Jesus and cannot by exercised apart from him and against his will (see his appointment of them in 3:13 ‘to be with him’).

4)	As those who are under his authority, they have ‘authority over the unclean spirits’ which plague those whose souls are defiled by sin.

5)	Like Jesus they teach by doing God’s work (healing) and work by teaching his word (preaching).

b.	Jesus exercises his authority as God’s Son by ‘calling’ the twelve to himself from the larger cohort of disciples.

1)	He chooses those whom he ‘desires’ (cf. 3:13) and ‘makes’ them his apostles (cf. 3:14,15).

2)	In the same way he has chosen us and made us pastors.

c.	Jesus exercises his authority by ‘sending’ them out as his ‘apostles’, even as he was ‘sent out’ by his heavenly Father (9:37). Remember that according to the rabbis ‘the one who is sent is as he who sends him’.

1)	He sends them out pair by pair (cf. 1:16, 19; 11:1; 14:13)
•	to conform with the law of sufficient testimony in a court of law and the test for truth in the public domain (cf. Deut 19:15, Matt 18:16)
•	to operate corporately as part of the apostolate (see the use of ‘we’
elsewhere in the NT) and as the church in miniature (cf. Matt 18:19, 20) 

2)	He confers his own ‘authority’ over the unclean spirits verbally upon each pair as he sends them out. They therefore have nothing to fear from the demons who must submit to them when they use his name (cf. Luke 10:17,19).

a)	Jesus has this authority from his heavenly Father (Mark 11:27-33; cf. Matt 28:18; John 5:27, 30; 17:2) who has sent him (9:37).

b)	Jesus has the authority from his heavenly Father to teach God’s word (1:22), to command demons (1:27), and to forgive sins (2:10).

c)	Jesus bestows the power of the ‘keys’ upon Peter and the apostles so that they can join with him in doing the saving work of God on earth (cf Matt 16:19; John 20:21-23). This involves the exercise of authority over the unclean spirits which, in Matt 10:1 and Luke 9:1, is closely connected with the healing of the sick.

d)	At our ordination Jesus too conferred on us the apostolic ministry of the word and gave us the authority to use the ‘keys’ of his Father’s kingdom.

d.	Jesus exercises his authority by making the apostles totally dependent on him and their hearers for their livelihood.

1)	He forbids them to take
•	any food for the journey
•	any bag for their possessions
•	any coins in a money belt
•	a second tunic to wear

2)	He commands them to take only two things as the marks of their mission
•	a staff for travelling (and shepherding people?)
•	a pair of sandals on their feet for travelling (as a sign that they were free men?).

3)	He tells them to accept the first offer of hospitality and to stay in that house rather than move from house to house.

a)	Those who welcomed them into their homes would be welcoming Jesus and his heavenly Father (cf. Mark 9:37), thereby continuing the work of Jesus in houses ( 1:29; 2:1, 15; 3:20; 5:38; 7:17, 24; 9:29, 33; 10:10, 29;  14:3) and establishing house churches in which the first converts were appointed as pastors.

b)	They did not come to their hosts as beggars but as benefactors to those who received them and listened to them (see Matt 10:13 to them as bearers of eschatological ‘peace’ from God).

c)	Like the apostles, we too come as benefactors to those whom we visit and depend on them for our livelihood. Should we not also operate more collegially?

4)	Jesus commands his apostles to treat those places which refused to welcome them, and these people who refused to listen to them, as unclean and without the holy saving presence of God.

a)	Wherever a pious Jew passed from pagan territory and entered the holy land, they shook the dust from their sandals to remove any impurity from their feet.

b)	Since the apostles and their successors represent Christ, they bring with them God’s eschatological judgment on people and places, for by rejecting them they had rejected Christ and the gospel (cf. Matt 10:14-15).
•	Those who receive them and their message of repentance are delivered from the realm of impurity and are healed. They therefore become holy.
•	Those who reject their message of repentance remain under God’s judgment and continue to live under the influence of the unclean spirits.

c)	By shaking off the dust from their sandals, the apostles were to exercise the office of the keys publicly and so bear testimony to the inhabitants of that place that they stood outside the realm of God’s grace and had excluded themselves from his holy presence.

d)	So we too have the command from Christ to exclude for God’s holy presence those who reject his call to repentance.

e.	Since the apostles were commissioned to represent Christ, they joined with him in doing the work of his heavenly Father.

1)	They ‘went out’ from Jesus (6:12) just as Jesus ‘went out’ from his Father (see 1:38; cf. John 8:42; 13:3; 16:27, 28, 30; 17:8).

2)	The apostles ‘preached that people should repent’ (6:12) just as Jesus had done (1:14; cf. 1:38-39).

a)	Since Jesus was the messianic judge, he executed the final judgment of God through them with the condemnation of the wicked and the vindication of the righteous.

b)	They were to call all people to turn away from sin and to turn to God for deliverance from sin, since all people were unclean sinners before God (cf. 7:21-23).

c)	As representatives of Jesus the apostles preached repentance by proclaiming God’s condemnation of sin and his justification of sinners.

d)	In this way they announced the final verdict and sentence of God upon all people.

3)	The apostles accompanied their preaching, which was primary, with the twofold exercise of Christ’s authority over the unclean spirits, since they had been disempowered by Christ (note the chiastic structure of 13a as well as the emphatic position of the final verb: ‘and healed’ which indicate that exorcism and anointing are complementary, therapeutic acts).

a)	The apostles ‘cast out many demons’ (6:12; cf. 3:15; 16:17), just as Jesus had done (1:34, 39).

b)	They anointed the sick with oil as a sign of the Holy Spirit (6:13; cf. James 5:14-16) and ‘treated’ them (6:13; cf. 16:18), just as Jesus had ‘treated’ the sick (1:34; 3:10).

4)	Jesus therefore used the twelve to extend his authority and his Father’s holy rule over human beings, the demonic realm and all kinds of sickness.

f.	As pastors we have received the apostolic ministry of word and sacrament from Christ and his apostles in and through the church.

1)	Like the apostles, we operate under the authority of Christ and exercise his authority in our work.

a)	Our power comes from Christ through our call and commission by him. We are his agents and representatives.

b)	We have the task of teaching God’s word authoritatively in order to deliver people from the power of impurity and to heal them.

2)	Like the apostles, we are involved in spiritual warfare and exercise Christ’s authority spiritually over the unclean spirits rather than politically over people, for his word which we proclaim alone has power over angelic, demonic and human spirits.

a)	We free people from the powers of darkness by preaching repentance, forgiveness and deliverance through faith in Jesus Christ.

b)	We expose impurity and work of Satan in people’s lives by teaching God’s word with authority, just as Jesus did (Mark 1:21-28).

c)	We deliver people from Satan by rebuking any unclean spirit in them and baptising them in the name of the Triune God.

d) 	Every service is an act of deliverance from Satan and all evil spirits.

3)	Like the apostles, we proclaim the healing word of God to people who are sick in body and soul.

a)	As St Paul reminds us in his pastoral letters both the ‘words’ of our Lord Jesus (1 Tim 6:3; 2 Tim 2:13) and the ‘teaching’ of law and gospel (1 Tim 1:10; 2 Tim 4:3; Tit 1:9; 2:1) bring ‘healing’ to people. They are ‘healing words’ and ‘healing teaching’, because they make people healthy in faith (Tit 1:13; 2:2).

b)	Our ministry of healing is exercised primarily through the preaching of repentance, for where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also eternal life from God and the healing of body and soul.

4)	Since we have been commissioned by Christ who has conferred his authority upon us, we can preach, teach and act confidently and decisively in, with and under his authority as his holy agents and royal representatives.